


The Limp

by Guinevere81



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-22
Updated: 2015-11-22
Packaged: 2018-05-02 20:25:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5262296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guinevere81/pseuds/Guinevere81
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John finds that once you have admitted to having a psychosomatic injury it becomes very hard to make anyone believe that you may actually be in pain. Especially when you keep getting hurt in the same leg over and over again. His frustration mounts until someone goes one step too far and Sherlock has to step in and defend his friend from the lack of sympathy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Acid

Acid

John stepped into the shower tiredly grumbling about the lack of sleep and was surprised when he stepped on a glass beaker which toppled over leaving the contents spreading in the bathtub around his feet. It took him only a second to realize that something was wrong and when the burning sensation started to spread under his foot he was swift to start the water running, hoping for dear life that whatever had been in the beaker wouldn't react badly with water because he really did need to clean his foot because it felt like it was being set of fire.

Ten minutes later he limped out of the bathroom in search of bandages and Sherlock to yell at, not necessarily in that order.

Sherlock is nowhere to be found and when he does return two hours later it is to find John leaning against the kitchen counter trying to make tea while keeping weight off his wounded foot.

'Good you're back, you can make tea then, I need to sit down.' John stated with a bit more steel in his voice than he had initially intended.

'John, I thought we sorted this, your limp isn't real, stop being so dull and make your own tea.' Sherlock quipped with a distinct lack of compassion.

'It is bloody well real now, since you left acid in the bathtub.' John cried hobbling toward the sofa, leaning heavily on his old cane.

'Oh, what did you do with it?' Sherlock asks with a slight frown.

'Well, I bloody well, stepped in it didn't I, and yes, then I rinsed it down the drain because really I was more concerned with the burning pain in my foot than preserving whatever experiment my crazy flatmate had left in the bathtub.' John all but shouted.

'You could have just removed the beaker from the bathtub, that would have prevented this rather efficiently.' Sherlock states simply and John doesn't bother to answer, why argue with a selfproclaimed sociopath. It wasn't worth it.


	2. Soccer

Soccer

It was great being out of the flat doing something normal and not just always chasing after criminals. When he'd got a call from one of his army mates to ask if he wanted to come to the park and join in a game of soccer he had jumped at the idea. He hadn't played in years but running after Sherlock kept him reasonably fit and he figured he could probably still hold his own.

He was surprised at how seriously everyone was taking the game but he joined in enthusiastically. Soon they were one man down, there was a very burly bloke on the other team who clearly did not really like to play it fair. He had tackled Simon, one of the younger lads on John's team into the goal post and when he had taken a fair few minutes to feel well enough to stand again John had deemed him not fit for the field and sent him off to sit on the sideline and watch.

The other team had grudgingly agreed to have one man sit it out as well. John had personally thought that it should have been the chap who had caused the damage and said as much which earned him a very dark stare from the man in question. In the end a kindly looking readheaded man willingly stepped off the field and the game continued.

It didn't take long for John to notice that the pushy man who had previously injured Simon was paying him special attention. At one point he sent him sprawling on the field with a fierce shove that John thought was certainly not in the rules of the game. Still he chose to ignore it and continue the game without further conflict but with a steely determination to win the game to show the nasty brute up.

And they were winning, largely due to the fact that they had significantly better teamwork than their opponents which pleased John. He was heading with a clear line toward the goal getting to try for the goal which would certainly clinch the game for them when it happened. The angry young man caught up with him and with ferocious determination drove his foot down, not on the ball but on the side of John's ankle which made it twist and with a yelp John tumbled to the ground.

He sat up slowly blinking at the grinning brute above him. He couldn't quite believe it, it had been such a blatant illegal tackle that John had fought criminals with more sense of fair play. And yet the man was standing there extending a hand to him offering to help him up.

One of John's teammates came over and crouched beside him. 'You alright mate? That's the second time you've landed on your arse today, is being out of the army making you soft?' He joked and the tone was friendly but it still stung.

'I'm fine.' John snapped ignoring the throbbing in his foot and accepting the extended hand. As soon as he put weight on his injured foot however he regretted it and he inadvertently leaned into his attacker clinging to his shoulder for support.

'Oh fuck, no I'm not. Christ I'm not going to be able to walk on that.' He tried to bite back the pain that coursed from his ankle to his knee as he tried to assess just how bad it was by carefully putting a little bit of weight on it.

'I heard you had a bit of a psychosomatic ailment, that's a bit weird if you ask me.' The man John was currently using as a crutch said with a satisfied grin.

'This isn't fucking psychosomatic, you kicked me.' John hissed and without thinking pushed the man away from him.

That wasn't the best of ideas. As soon as his foot took the impact of his weight it buckled sending him to his knees and to his great embarrassment unwitting tears sprung to his eyes.

'Ah, he's crying now. I can see why the army didn't want to keep you. Bit of a whimp.' The man taunted and John's face which had recently been white with pain was now turning rather red. He didn't often get angry on his own behalf, not really even with Sherlock but he wanted to rip this man to pieces. Something which would have been distinctly easier if he had been able to stand on his own.

'Hey, leave him alone. He was honourably discharged, he's a bloody hero you twat.' John's friend kneeled beside him placing a hand on his shoulder as John slid off his knees and onto his backside so he could start to remove his shoe.

More people were coming over now and one of the younger men on John's team whom he didn't know very well came over to stand over them watching John struggling with his shoe. 'Is it his wonky leg being weird?' the boy asked and it wasn't meant to be cruel but John had simply had enough.

'Why does everyone keep saying that.' He shouted 'There's nothing wrong with my bloody leg. That bastard kicked me. He may well have broken my foot. I need a hospital, I need an x ray, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Just bloody well look at it.' He shouted as he pulled his sock off rather more harshly than he had intended.

And the little crowd that was swiftly growing larger did look. 'Shit John, I'm sorry.' The young man said as he stared down at John's clearly injured foot. It was swelling quickly and on the side of it were the deep indentations on the spiky bottom of a soccer shoe.

'Shit, is it broken?' Someone asked and John shrugged.

'I don't know. It won't take my weight but it's not visibly broken could be just a bad sprain.'

'I'll take you to A&E, I have my brother's car.' The man who had originally invited John stated and together with one of the other teammates they helped John up and supported him as he hobbled through the park. Noone really cared what the score of the game had been any more, but when John came home that evening on crutches with a cast on his foot the first thing he told Sherlock was not that he had a really bad sprain and two hairline fractures in his ankle but that it had clearly been worth it because at the end of the day they had won.

Sherlock's response to this had been to shake his head and tell John that 'No it really wasn't worth it, you will be frightfully hard to freight around now. How long till that thing comes off?'


	3. Just an accident

Just an accident

After the accident with the acid John has grown more wary of Sherlock's experiments. Sherlock has also grown marginally better at actually cleaning up after them.

John is inordinately happy when he comes down one Sunday morning to find the kitchen clear of experiments.

Late the night before when he was lying in bed reading a book he had received a text from Sherlock saying.

Sorry made a mess, it sort of exploded. SH 

He debated between rushing down to see if Sherlock was hurt and simply texting him back but he figured that if Sherlock was texting he wasn't dying.

What exploded? Are you alright? JW

He settles for, but he waits for a reply instead of going back to the book.

The gone off milk carton. Floor and I now smell disgusting. SH

John sighs; Sherlock can be such a child sometimes.

Then clean the floor and yourself, and do go to bed for once. There's cleaning stuff under the sink.

He doesn't hear from Sherlock again that night and as he descended the stairs the next morning he really had expected a stinking mess. The utterly clean kitchen smelling nicely of soft soap and air freshener is an unexpected delight. He intends to make use of it. There are eggs and chipolatas in the fridge but no milk. He takes the stairs down to Mrs Hudson two at a time. After three and a half weeks out of a cast the novelty of being able to do things normally and run unimpeded after Sherlock has still not worn off.

Mrs Hudson fills a small beaker with milk for him and he pounds back up the stairs circling the kitchen table to put it next to the kettle. And then he is sent flying and his only thought is to save the beaker, which is possibly not the best of ideas since when his left foot slams into the kitchen cupboard at an angle he looses track of it anyway and slams it onto the floor with much more force than it would have hit with had it fallen on his own.

'Shit, fucking arse buggering hell.' He mumbles as he sits up watching the devastation he has created. Milk is splattered along with shards of Mrs Hudson's beaker all over the newly cleaned floor and as of right now it is being mottled pink by the cut on the palm of his hand which is sluggishly dripping blood into the mixture.

He doesn't really care about the mess, or the shallow cut on his hand which doesn't really hurt that much. What he minds is the throbbing in his ankle. It seems he has only just got off the darn crutches, never mind that it has been nearly a month. Now here he is, once again in pain, and all because he had actually got Sherlock to clean up after himself.

He has no doubts what made him fall. The smell of soft soap is too strong and now that he is sitting down he can feel the slightly slippery patch just under his right hand that indicates that Sherlock has either spilled and not bothered to clean up or more likely just rinsed the floor sloppily. He wants to be angry with Sherlock but he can't, not when Sherlock has been so wonderfully good at doing exactly what John had asked him.

Instead he hobbles painfully into the bathroom where he puts a couple of steri-strips on his hand and covers the cut neatly. When he emerges with bandages and an ice pack for his foot, wondering if he can put off cleaning the kitchen until the throbbing subsides a bit, he finds Sherlock standing in the doorway staring thoughtfully at the mess in front of him.

'I clean up the mess and so you make a new mess.' Sherlock says in an amused voice as he places a Tesco bag on the table and brings out two pints of milk.

'John you're limping on the wrong foot.' He continues with a slight frown that could almost be a grin. He can imagine the field day people will have with trying to figure out if John's psychosomatic limp has now moved legs.

'No, it's the right foot. It's the foot that hit the cupboard after I slipped on the soap you didn't clean up.' John snaps but then quickly stops himself. 'Sorry, sorry. It's not your fault, and you bought milk.' He corrects.

'Sit down, put ice on your foot. I'll make tea and bring you your cane.' Sherlock offers.

'I don't want my cane. I'm never using that thing again.' John grumbles as he deposits himself on the sofa with a cushion under his foot and the ice pack on top. He can't quite keep that up. For the next week he uses it to hobble around the flat. He does however completely refuse to leave the flat so anyone can see which amuses Sherlock. When Lestrade come's over with a case John hides in his room and orders Sherlock, under pain of alerting health and safety authorities about his experiments if he doesn't comply, to tell Lestrade that John has the flu. This incidentally is also what he tells the clinic.

And so this little incident goes unnoticed by the world at large, because John is proud enough not to want to take the secret speculation about whether the injury to his shoulder which everyone claimed had manifested in his leg had now suddenly decided to move again. That was just too much.


	4. Suspect

Suspect

John enjoyed the chase, it was lovely weather and Sherlock was in a good mood having just solved a case, well all but, they hadn't actually caught Melvile the burglar yet.

Unfortunately the case had gone on for days and Sherlock had not been eating which to John's concern had him stumbling and having to sit down with his head between his knees.

'Get him John, I'm fine. Sherlock mumbled from between his knees as he pressed a pair of handcuffs into John's hand.

Knowing the cause for Sherlock's illness and that it could be easily managed once the thief was apprehended John pushed forward and caught up with the man Just as he was dashing into Hyde park and toward the Serpentine.

The man wasn't big or very skilled, it should have been an easy fight but then he had something in his hand and, shit is that a crowbar John thought. He managed to duck away from it hitting his head while simultaneously landing a punch to the mans chest. Melvile grunted but swung again and the second blow hit John over the hip knocking him to the ground.

Fear and pain surged almost at the same time and he tried to push through it when he heard an unexpected gunshot and a very familiar voice. 'Hit him again and you're dead.' Sherlock, the man who had absolutely no verbal timing at all could at times have an absolutely perfect timing when it came to turning up in the nick of time.

The man was soon in handcuffs and a rather confused patrolling policeman was agreeing to deliver him to Detective Inspector Lestrade. The young man had never heard of Sherlock and he had never seen anyone make a citizen's arrest before, let alone overpowering a man armed with a crowbar. The gun was safely tucked away and thankfully the young criminal was too busy protesting his innocence to have time to mention it.

That night Sherlock slept like a baby after having had a huge dinner. John didn't sleep at all. He lay all night twisting and turning and alternating ice packs and heating bads on his bruised hip in an attempt to make it stop throbbing. Nothing was broken but the bruise was truly impressive. By morning it was so dark it was nearly black and the painkillers did little more than take the edge off. He knew that if he wanted to he could get something stronger but that would make his head foggy and he had to report to Lestrade in the morning and then he had work in the afternoon and he knew he couldn't work if he was all doped up.

Lestrade looked confused at John as he entered his office limping badly and for the love of God, leaning on that cane again. Lestrade had mentioned the cane and the limping to Sherlock at one point and Sherlock had beamed at him with a proud smile and said. 'Oh, it was all psychosomatic, I've cured it, all sorted now.' It did not look all sorted to Lestrade.

Recently it had even progressed to the point where John had turned up to the crime scene on crutches. He was a bit concerned. Having someone so crippled around criminals didn't seem entirely safe. Not when Sherlock was around anyway.

'How's the leg?' he asked tentatively.

'Painful.' Came John's short and succinct answer.

'I thought Sherlock said he cured it.' Lestrade queried.

'He did. Your suspect from last night brought it back with a rather effectively wielded crowbar.'

'Lestrade didn't like the cryptic nature of that response. If it had been anyone other than John he would assume that he had been simply injured by the escaping villain, something which would be bad enough, having civilians getting hurt. Yet with John, he was a returning war veteran, a wounded war veteran and crazy enough to shack up with Sherlock. What if chasing after all these nutters was really sending the doctor round the bend again. He didn't want that on his conscience.

But now Sherlock was spouting deductions at high speed and he needed to keep up so he turned his attention away from the doctor who for the moment was perched on his desk looking with tired admiration at his flatmate. For once he was fairly oblivious to the level at which his sanity was being questioned.


	5. Stiletto

Stiletto

John wore nice soft comfortable shoes to work. Not the hard leather of Sherlock's dress shoes but nice and supple and moulding to his feet. They made a reassuring flopping sound when he walked across the floor and matched those worn by most of the staff at the clinic. On this particular day that turned out to be a mistake.

It wasn't an accident, but neither was it a criminal bent on escaping imprisonment that did it but rather a quite posh and tall lady with a distinct objection to the fact that John was offering her treatment for addiction instead of the repeat prescription of Valium she wanted.

The woman was tall and thin and not particularly strong and John was prepared for the blow that he could see building up in her clinched fists. He would have deflected it gently but securely except he wasn't quite prepared for the fact that women sometimes don't attack in quite the same way that men do.

When she lifted her knee his first thought was that the movement was too slow if she was intending to knee him in the groin and when she drove it down it was too late for him to react. The thin metal heel of her stiletto bore down on his foot and embedded itself there.

'Bloody useless doctor. I'll damn well report you.' She spat at him and John had no response to that. If he hadn't been so fascinated by the offending implement being withdrawn from his foot and blood starting to pool around it he probably would have thought to comment that if anyone was getting reported after this it would be her. He didn't. Instead he stood stock still and watched her rush out of the room before he slumped in his chair removed his shoe and sock and stared at his foot.

The stupid woman had broken the skin leaving a deep puncture mark in John's foot. Looked a bit like stigmata he thought and found himself giggling. He probably shouldn't stitch it up himself he figured, not when he had a clinic full of doctors and nurses just outside so instead he buzzed the receptionist.

'That last one seemed a bit upset.' The cheerful little woman said and John hummed in response.

'She was. She stabbed me in the foot with a stiletto. Could you get Sarah in here?' He asked and he heard the short intake of breath on the other line.

'She did what, oh God, we'll be right there.' She sounded far more concerned than was reasonable for someone who worked in a medical clinic John thought. Then again it was really rather hurting and from somewhere he could hear a slight ringing and then he had spots dancing before his eyes. Oh no you don't, you've been bloody shot, you do not pass out over a stabbed foot. He silently orders himself and then swiftly shoves his head between his knees taking deep breaths.

That is how Sarah finds him two minutes later ashened face shoved between his knees and a steadily bleeding foot extended before him. She is surprisingly concerned as is the rest of the staff and he finds himself swiftly propped up on a cot, tucked in under a blanket with a blood pressure monitor stuck to his finger as Sarah cleans and stitches his foot. There are no taunts of psychosomatic pain, no suggestion that he is being weak for getting hurt and it seems illogical. He can break bones and be treated like a wimp, yet when he is stomped on by a woman in high heels people tuck him into bed and stuff him full of painkillers.

He gets driven home by one of the nurses and is surprised that Sherlock doesn't ask him what has happened, or even comment.

For the sake of normality therefore it is quite nice when he walks into New Scotland Yard the next day and hears Sally's frustrated, 'Oh God, you're not limping again.' It is familiar if frustrating. Really the same can be said for Sherlock's response.

'He got stepped on by and angry woman in very high heels. Apparently that can be rather painful.' He informs the whole room and to John's mortification they all burst out laughing. Of course Sherlock had deduced him. At that moment he almost longs for the simplicity of the constant pain in his thigh that had been his companion for all those months after he got back from Afghanistan. I had been familiar, this was just embarrassing.


	6. Anderson

Anderson

Anderson was angry, frustrated with the lanky detective and his medical sidekick who seemed to constantly invade his crime scenes and make him look stupid. He wasn't stupid, he was sure of that, it was just the way that Sherlock kept stepping on his toes that made him look ridiculous and it didn't help to have someone as experienced in medicine as John trailing behind him.

That was why on this particular day he snapped, rather more forcefully than he had intended as he stepped in front of the two pushing the smaller man backward, not daring to touch the tall detective for fear that he might retaliate.

Sherlock slips easily past him but John has no room to move out of the way and the angry shove has just sent him stepping backward. Only behind him was the stairs and he fell handlessly backwards down the narrow stairs.

'Oh I didn't mean to. Are you alright?' Anderson asked running down the stairs after John.

John lay still, panting for a moment blinking up at the man above him. Then he tried to move and gasped in pain. 'No, I think I hurt my leg again, damn I think it might be broken.' He said between gritted teeth at which Anderson laughed.

'Don't give me that, you and your bloody leg, I know it was never really hurt.' Anderson quipped giving John a slight kick to the shin and instantly regretting it as John's leg bent, but not at the knee. John cried out as his already broken leg was manhandled and blood started to stain his jeans leg just below his knee. 'Oh God, sorry.' Anderson gasped at the sight and bent to roll John's trousers up to inspect the injury.

'God, definitely broken.' John observed and then let out a strangled scream as Anderson started to roll the trouser leg up accidentally brushing against the injured flesh.

Sherlock heard his friend's cries and was onto the stairs and pounding down them within seconds. 'Anderson what the hell did you do?' he snapped cupping John's face gently in his hand. 'Leave him alone, call and ambulance and find some scissors.' He directs with some force, pushing Anderson away from John.

'John are you hurt anywhere other than your leg? Did you hit your head?' Sherlock asked gently holding John in place in case he had injured his back or neck.

'Of course I did, I just fell down a flight of stairs, I think I hit pretty much everything there was to hit, but the leg is the worst, it's definitely broken.' John explains and Sherlock lets out a frustrated giggle.

'Yes John I can tell, it's an open fracture at that, you're bleeding quite a lot. Do I need to try to create a tourniquet or something.' He asks fearfully as Anderson returns with a pair of kitchen scissors.

'The ambulance is on it's way. It should be no more than ten minutes at the most.' He informs as he hands Sherlock the scissors and watch him start to cut John's trousers.

'Unless you are recreating a scene from an action movie tourniquets are not really used, not in real life.' Anderson explains and then winces slightly as the bone protruding out of John's leg is revealed showing a ragged wound that bled rather enthusiastically. 'You might want to put pressure on that though, stop the bleeding.' He mused but as Sherlock started to pull his scarf out John quickly reached a hand out to stop him.

'You'll make me pass out. It already hurts so much I'm seeing spots. I want to be able to speak to the medics. I won't bleed out, I can spare a pint or two.' John instructed with a deep frown on his face.

'What do I do then?' Sherlock asks. Dealing with the wounded is not his area of expertise, he much prefer the dead, although not John of course.

'Nothing, I should lie down properly, elevate the leg, but I think right now that might have the same effect.' Anderson and Sherlock both frowned at him.

'What the hell happened here?' Lestrade was approaching them from above.'

'Anderson pushed John down the stairs. ' Sherlock fills in.

'I did not, it was an accident.' Anderson hissed at him but he was clearly going a little bit pink.

'You didn't have to kick me when I told you I broke my leg.' John mumbled and then in a tight whisper he added 'Sherlock, I don't feel well.' And put a hand up to his mouth.

Lestrade looked at them in utter bewilderment and then his brain clicked and a stern gaze fell on Anderson who shrank slightly under it. 'You kicked a man who had already fallen down the stairs and broken his leg? God, what were you thinking?' Lestrade growled at Anderson shoving him aside to take his place next to Sherlock and John.

'I thought he was just being silly, you know that it was still all in his head, I never…' Anderson trails off, no one is paying him any heed. 'Stupid man to cry wolf so many times, how was I to know it was real this time?'

Somehow John even in his daze can still hear his jumbled excuses. 'Didn't mean to cry wolf, it did hurt. Hurts more now.' He whispers with his eyes screwed shut as Sherlock carefully runs his hands over his arms looking for further injury.

'Of course it hurts, you have a concussion and a badly broken leg, oh and a sprained wrist, and I suspect that you are going to be unconscious in about thirty seconds.' Sherlock explained and John smiled weakly and murmured 'You deduced me again.' And then his eyes slipped shut much as Sherlock had predicted. Sherlock proceeded to move John into recovery position ignoring the instructions about elevating his leg. He really didn't want his friend choking should he end up vomiting.

'It definitely isn't all in his head any more.' Lestrade said sympathetically. 'Will he be alright?'

'I suspect so, he has a fantastic ability to heal.' Sherlock pays his unconscious friend an unexpected compliment. 'It hasn't been in his head for years though, people are just too stupid to see it, even I have been known to make that mistake.'

The admission is a surprise to Lestrade who has to ask in some confusion. 'But he keeps limping, and then he's fine and then he's limping again… it's like a constant cycle, he clearly isn't quite well yet.'

'Yes because ignorant people keep hurting him. I probably should take some of the blame. I left acid in the bathtub. That took quite a while to heal.' Lestrade groans and Anderson stares at him with wide eyes.

'Then there was the sadistic officer who broke his ankle playing soccer. He's been demoted, Mycroft had some other dirt on him, quite satisfying.'

'You had someone demoted over a soccer accident.' Anderson asks and if possible his eyes go even wider. He does not want to know what will happen to him if Sherlock gets his hands on him after this little incident.

'Not an accident. The pattern of the bruising and the angle of the fractures made it quite clear it was deliberate. Besides John admitted as much.' Sherlock sounds like he is talking about the weather and not someone intentionally breaking his best friend's foot and Lestrade finds it a little disconcerting.

'Then there was Melvile, the thief with the crowbar.' Sherlock absentmindedly pulls out his phone and flips through pictures of crime scenes until he finds the one he wants. It's a man's hip, presumably, Lestrade muses John's. His boxers are pulled down to the point of almost being indecent, Lestrade tries to ignore the little tuft of pubic hair poking out of the lining and focuses instead on the black welt running across his hip.

'Does he know you have that?' Anderson asks with a giggle.

'Of course not, he was asleep, after Melvile there was…' Sherlock continues as he pockets the phone again.

'The woman with the stiletto, yes I remember, that was only two months ago. We did all know about that one.' Lestrade fills in and despite having laughed at the time he doesn't find it all that amusing any longer. Poor John, and now this.

'It never really was in his head either.' Sherlock continues and using the scissors continues to cut John's jeans a few inches higher revealing a thin white scar just above the knee. It's been neatly stitched.

'That doesn't look too bad, not enough to go all addled in the head over.' Anderson comments and Lestrade shakes his head thinking that sometimes Anderson and Sherlock can be as bad as each other when it comes to being callous.

'Do you know what happened?' Lestrade asks, he can hear sirens in the far distance now.

'His drunk uncle stabbed him because John told him he didn't like it when he was drinking. He was twelve. The uncle left him there to bleed out but John managed to crawl to the phone and call himself an ambulance. He was born brave I think, just like I was born smart.' Anderson and Lestrade gape at Sherlock who is carefully rubbing circles over John's shoulder. None of them speak again until the EMT's rush in and Sherlock starts to relay his deductions about John's injuries.

When they are gone Anderson and Lestrade stand below the stairs with a pool of John's blood spread out between them.

'Bloody hell, I think I owe him an apology.' Anderson mumbles and Lestrade agrees, 'Yes Philip, me too.' They return to the crime scene and continue working with a slightly more sombre mood as they wait for Sherlock to call with news of John's condition.

It is late evening before Lestrade's phone beeps.

He'll be okay. We can't take the case. In hospital for now, then going away. 

There is no signature but Lestrade knows who's sent it, he is also of a far too curious disposition to accept that short explanation. He calls Sherlock.

'I told you we can't take the case.' Is the first thing Sherlock says as he answers.

'Well, I wanted a bit more detail on how John is doing. So I know just how much to torture Anderson over this. And well, I was wondering where on earth you're going what with John injured. You're not going to abandon him and go off on some quest?' Lestrade specifies. At the comment about Anderson he can practically hear Sherlock's satisfied grin.

'John has a compound fracture to his lower leg which has been set with plates and as long as the wound does not get infected it should heal fine. The concussion is annoying, he keeps falling asleep on me and when he's awake he does more throwing up than talking but I'm assured that his CT scans look good so he should recover with just a large dose of inconvenience and boredom. Hence I'm taking him to my parents place. He'll be in a wheelchair for the first couple of weeks and that won't work in Baker Street. Also my mummy loves taking care of the sickly and wounded, I don't care for it, it's a perfect solution. 'Sherlock seems to manage the whole description in more or less one breath and Lestrade is absolutely fascinated. He had somehow had a feeling that Sherlock and Mycroft must have hatched from a pod or were maybe genetically engineered in a lab.

'You're taking him to your parents?' It comes out sounding rather silly even to Lestrade.

'That's what I said, now go torture Anderson. John will be hobbling around in pain for months and I expect Anderson to suffer at least that long.' And with that Sherlock has hung up.

Lestrade sits down in his chair with a thump. Well, wonders never seize, Sherlock and John still very much have the chance to surprise him. He had always thought that Sherlock was the adrenaline chasing daredevil who gets into trouble and John was the one with a caring heart who would sort the mess out afterwards. Today clearly showed him that it can be quite the other way around.

Am so very tempted to add an extra chapter at the end of this with Sherlock taking revenge on Anderson, and maybe one where John's limp actually seems to be psychosomatic again... but that would rather get away from the actual plot. This was supposed to be the end of the story.


End file.
